your name is pounding through my veins
by xshedreamsinredx
Summary: Jake/Faye. With mentions of Faye/Lee. Jealousy isn't a pretty shade on you.


your name is pounding through my veins

"_Excuse me a second,  
I need to get my story straight."_

-O-

The thing about Faye Chamberlain is that she is too obvious especially when she is trying not to be which, pretty much by default, happens to be every waking moment she spends in his proximity; and this is not him bragging but merely stating an educated observation that he totally didn't waste his time on.

"Can we get this over with already?," she asks in a forced drawl of boredom which screams 'that I don't have anything better to do but I'd still not stay holed up with you', tossing the book of shadows she has been holding upside down for the past two hours aside. "You have to understand that playing Sabrina, the teenage witch, with you on a daily basis is not exactly my definition of fun time."

He looks up from the crumbled yellow page he has been studying; quirks a brow at her in a way that he remembers makes her feel stupid and young and it is as good distraction as any to keep him from pining over this certain golden haired girl he knows. "What would you rather have it be?"

He is aware that the question sounds more suggestive than it should and maybe he has said it in the first place for that particular reason only.

"Not you, that's for sure." She mutters under her breath, making a big show of rolling her eyes with pretend disgust and he would have almost brought the picture perfect shot if her hands weren't trembling so badly at sides.

"That is not how I remember it," he smirks, walking over to her, because he is an asshole and he is used to getting under her skin and making it crawl even if for all the wrong reasons. The rules might have changed but the game remains the same. "You wouldn't have come that night if you-"

"And I already told you that _that_ never happened, it was a mistake," she cuts in just in time before he can delve deeper into the juicy, gory details of their rendezvous. He feels a little offended. "Besides Melissa is waiting for me, I should get going..."

He looks at his wrist watch, it is seven. There is a bizarre pattern to her disappearances; lately whenever the dusk starts approaching she takes it as her cue to flee. Not that he'll admit to have noticed it because that would mean he cares and he doesn't know if you know this about him but he never has cared for anyone whose name isn't Jake Armstrong.

"You should." He agrees, and refuses to think for a minute that he is disappointed because um, it's Faye and he doesn't do disappointed with her. Not anymore.

She gathers her books, leaves without a single word (which fun fact: is so out of character). And it occurs to him, that Faye Chamberlain just pulled his patent move there.

She walked away.

-O-

He realizes the 'why' of her constant vanishing when he is skulking around at the school fundraiser and sees her with the self proclaimed voodoo priest who has his grubby paws over her and tongue shoved deep down her throat. To say the least he is not impressed.

He watches with an emotion that is part resentment and parts something else he doesn't have a definition for as they moon over each other on the dance floor and there is this irrational urge that demands him to go up to the guy and sock him in the eye but he is keeping to staying in sidelines, so he doesn't.

"That's more like it."

He hears her say and grits his teeth because, why not.

-O-

It's only later when he waits for her in the dead of the night outside the school that he realizes that he hasn't thought about Cassie all the while.

He is indecisive about whether to be relived or panicked.

-O-

"So, is this some sort of new 'look mom you screwed me over so I'm going to sleep with the next old, available guy I can find' phase that you have going on for you?" He questions, causing her to jump in surprise as he emerges from the dark shadows that were conjuring him up until now.

She sways a bit on her feet, trying to get rid of the alcohol induced haze and he reaches out to steady her. "Jake?"

"In flesh," he replies monotonously. "You didn't answer my question."

Her eyebrows knit in confusion and he can see the exact moment his words register because her eyes narrow to slits and she tugs herself free from his grip. "Not that it's any of your business but if you must know I haven't slept with him… yet."

He feels a strange sentiment pass through him as she turns her back on him and starts to walk away. He follows, falling quickly into her step. "How old is he anyways, twenty six?"

"Twenty three actually," she answers, glaring at him momentarily. "But I still fail to see how that is any of your concern."

"Oh, it most definitely isn't," he declares cheerfully, a little too cheerfully to be anything but that. "But I can list at least twenty different countries where having sex with a minor is regarded as statutory rape."

She freezes, and then stares at him menacingly. "Are you threatening to out me?"

"All I am saying is that the next time you are doing the nasty with a guy who is the age of your older brother, you should think about what the whole town and your mother will say if they so much as get a whiff of it." He is hitting below the belt but he's never played fair before, so what makes it so different this time?

"I love him," she announces to him, in a rare moment of outburst, hand snaking up to grab him by his collar. "And you won't ruin it for me this one time. You owe me that."

If he feels some sort of sting by her words, he doesn't show it, just shrugs simply and inhales the cold night air, feigning that the immediacy doesn't affect him. "You don't need me for that; you can do that all by yourself."

-O-

She doesn't come to study spells for the whole week. Not that he keeps flicking his gaze to empty couch she usually sat on, because that would be lame and pathetic and for now he wants to pretend he isn't.

-O-

Before the week is over, he is standing on the Chamberlain porch rapping at the wooden door; mostly because he doesn't think entering through the window will sit well with her at this point.

She yanks the door open after few minutes. "What?"

He clears his throat. "I… heard what happen."

Her eyes are puffy and she is dressed in a shirt that looks three sizes bigger to belong to her and he would find it funny if it weren't for such tragic reasons. "And you came here to pay condolences because you're nice like that?"

"No, I just wanted to say that the Lee guy was shady and sketchy… and god knows I hated his guts-"

"Ok, if you are done insulting my dead boyfriend, you can go." She says but she hasn't slammed the door in his face yet, so that clearly is some progress right there.

"…But you didn't deserve that."

Her eyes widen comically and she looks like she wants to say something badly but the words get struck in her throat. It gives him a brief sense of déjà vu because it's so much like the way they used to be back when things weren't screwed up, when all her concern was that he wasn't willing to put a label on their… relationship? When she was still obsessing over him and the things he liked, when she wasn't tougher, meaner, resident bitch.

Looking at it now, there is not much difference between then and now only that she has moved on.

Too bad he hasn't.

(Girls like Cassie come around every once in a while but they do not belong with guys like Jake. It is common knowledge.)

-O-

He leans in closer, takes a hold of her shoulder and kisses her.

(Because he is stupid and aching and selfish and no matter how many metaphors and simile he uses to cover it up he was never the kind to resist temptation especially when it dances in front of him with an almost vulnerable side.)

-O-

Two things happen at once: she gasps and pushes him away and it is only when he hears a loud cry of 'what is wrong with you?' and the harsh thud of her door shutting close that he realizes it might not have happened in that particular order.

He looks intently at the blocked entrance, knows that she is hiding behind it and things something like it's sad she'll never know the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone.

-O-


End file.
